The transmission of sound through a flooring system is of great concern, especially in multi-family dwellings. The ability of the flooring system not to transmit sound from one living space to the next is greatly desired.
In many multi-family dwelling, the flooring system uses a gypsum (or cementitious) material covering over a subfloor structure. While the gypsum material has some inherent sound deadening properties, those properties are not sufficient to meet the higher standards now being sought by the building industry.
The industry has looked at the use of various forms of entangled net to address the sound deadening issue, see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,096,630, US2006/0230699; U.S. Pat. No. 8,146,310; U.S. Pat. No. 8,544,218; and U.S. Pat. No. 8,528,286, each incorporated herein by reference. While each of these solutions have provided an advancement, the industry is still looking for greater sound deadening properties.
Entangled nets are known, for example see U.S. Pat. No. 7,096,630, US2006/0230699; U.S. Pat. No. 8,146,310; U.S. Pat. No. 8,544,218; and U.S. Pat. No. 8,528,286, each incorporated herein by reference. Entangled nets may be in two general forms: 1) a solid formed of a plurality of entangled fibers (filaments or continuous fibers), for example see U.S. Pat. No. 7,096,630, U.S. Pat. No. 8,146,310, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,544,218; or 2) a sheet of entangled fibers (filaments or continuous fibers) where the sheet is folded (eg, forming a sine curve in cross-section or ‘peaks and furrows’ (or ‘W’)) or dimpled (eg, cone-shaped) to create a three-dimensional solid, for example see U.S. Pat. No. 8,528,286 and U.S. Pat. No. 8,146,310.
Accordingly, there is a need for new sound deadening products that meet or exceed the performance of the foregoing products.